Joyce's Sweet Rolls: A Tribute

 A couple of weeks ago, my dad's Aunt Joyce passed away.  She is missed immensely, we we know she is in a better place now-- at home with her Savior.

To get an idea of the kind of person she was, I highly recommend reading these thoughts from her grandchildren.

At the funeral, by all of the pictures and photo albums, they had her apron which said "World's Best Cook."

I know those are strong words, but... it's true.  She was an AMAZING cook.  I remember her saying one time "Julie {her daughter-in-law} is always bugging me to give her my recipe for baked steak, but I refuse, because when she finds out how many calories are in it, she will never eat it again."

One of my life-long regrets is that I never got that recipe from her.


Aside from that exception, she was always willing to share her recipes...a quality I respect and admire.  I feel very strongly that food is meant to share, and that includes teaching others how to make it.

Joyce's signature recipe was her sweet rolls, and I am blessed that I have that recipe.  And so, I will attempt to share it with you.

Here we go!

Here is what you need for the dough (clockwise from bottom left): eggs, flour (all-purpose is fine), milk/water, salt, yeast, margarine or shortening, sugar.

Put the sugar and salt in a bowl.  Heat the milk.  I put the margarine in the with dry ingredients, but I should have put it in the milk when I was warming it so it would melt faster.

  

Combine until fat is nice and melty.

Add in the eggs, flour and yeast.

Stir with dough hook until well combined.  Be sure to stop the mixer and scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl so all of the flour gets combined.

Now here is the trick with the dough.  It needs to be sticky.  Yes, it is hard to work with when it's sticky, but sticky dough is half of having nice, moist rolls.  However, you do need to be able to roll it out and work with it.  What I have found to be a suitable stopping point in the addition of the flour is to stop just when the dough starts to move with the hook.  When it is really runny, the hook swirls around in the dough.  When it is just right, the dough will is beginning to "act as one."  It is really hard to explain, and it might take you a few tries, but when you are doing it, I think you will know what I mean.

Now put that dough in the awesomely huge pink bowl your mom got you for your birthday.  (Thanks, Mom!)

Cover and let rise until double in size.  Punch it down, then let it double again.  This is how it looks when doubled in size.  It was night time, and I wanted to bake them in the morning, so I put it in the fridge overnight.  That's a tip that I learned from Pioneer Woman.  Since the dough is so sticky, it is much easier to work with when its cold.  I probably would have wanted to chill it even if I wasn't waiting until the next day to bake the rolls.

And here were are the next day.  Good morning, Sunshine!
I made a half-batch, which makes about 2 dozen rolls.  I decided to try two different variations.  The first one was this idea from Pioneer Woman.

  

I like to melt my butter in a mug.  I put it in the microwave for 1-2 minutes at 50% powers... that helps keep it from exploding all over the place, but I don't have to stir it around.

I added the splash of vanilla to the melted butter.  Now, here's the other half of having nice, moist rolls:  You must, must MUST fill it with enough butter.  According to Pioneer Woman, this is 1/4 cup per dozen rolls.  I know, I know, I know..."Um...Steph? Isn't pouring that melted butter onto the dough going to make a huge mess?"  No... not if you chill the dough.  Having it nice and melty helps you spread it, but then it thickens quickly on the chilly dough.  You see how this is all coming together, now?

Dust your work surface with LOTS of flour.  Since we scrimped on the flour when making the dough, we have some wiggle room with dusting, so we can dust with a lot of flour and not dry things out too much.  See that thing on my rolling pin?  It is a knit "sock" that helps keep things from sticking.  It came as a set with my canvas mat for rolling out pie crust.  These two things are WONDERFUL and I highly recommend them.  They save a lot of headache--and mess!  I should have used my canvas mat to roll the dough on, but I was making poor choices, and I didn't.  Also, I didn't use nearly enough flour to dust, and it got a little dicey when I tried to roll it up and extract the dough from the counter top.  Learn from my fail.

Spread the stuffs out.  This is starting to look really delicious (you may not be able to tell from the out-of-focus picture.  Remember how I lost my camera?  I still haven't found it, so I did all of these picture with my phone).

Roll it up and slice into rolls.  Here is another opportunity to Learn From My (Repeated) Fail:  I always roll along the long edge, making  a very long roll with fewer "rotations."  DON'T DO THAT.    I end up cutting my rolls 1.5-2 inches thick, and then then are too tall and fall over while they are rising.  Roll your dough so it is 12 inches on one side and longer on the other, then take your twelve inch side and roll perpendicular to that.  In the end you should have a 12 inch long "rope" that you can cut into inch think rolls.  Am I making any sense here?

Put them in a pan.  I used a metal pan, because it seemed like the thing to do.  I also greased it because, again, it seemed like the think to do.
Let them rise until double in size (don't skip this step!! I know its tempting, and I know you are so close you can taste it, but they need to rise!)  Then bake them.  Frost if you want, then eat them.

Here they are... all done!  The chocolate chips make it rich enough... I find they don't need the frosting.  Yummy!

  

This is what I did with the other half of the dough...I used the same amount of each kind of sugar, mixed it with a half stick of melted butter and about a tablespoon of cinnamon, and filled them.  Later I whipped up some cream cheese frosting to top them with... mmm!

I hope Joyce is not rolling over in her grave at my rendition of her sweet rolls.  I don't think she is.  She wasn't a snooty cook that though she was better than everyone else.  She was gracious, and just glad you wanted to try and learn.

That's the kind of cook I want to be.

JOYCE'S SWEET ROLL DOUGH

This recipe is a whole batch.  In my pictures, I made a half batch... and remember how full my gigantic pink bowl was when the dough doubled.  Keep that in mind when deciding which size batch to make.

• 1 c shortening or margarine
• 1 c sugar
• 1 T salt
• 5 c hot milk or water or combination of both

Heat milk and add to above ingredients.  Then add:

• 3 eggs (I just used 1 egg when I halved the batch)
• 10-12 cups flour
• 3 T instant blend yeast (mix in with some of the flour)-- I used regular yeast

Mix well with dough hook-- Let rise til about double two times.

This dough may be used for Cinnamon Rolls, Dinner Rolls, or Doughnuts.  Also used for Runzas, Pigs in a Blanket, and Stromboli.

To make cinnamon rolls, roll out dough in large rectangle.  Spread with softened margarine & sprinkle with cinnamon & sugar.  Roll up and slice into 1-inch slices.  Put in pan.  Let rise about 20 minutes.

Bake 20-30 minutes at 350.
Frost with:

• 1/4 c. melted margarine 
• 3 T milk
• 2-2 1/2 c powdered sugar.